Rep. for Hawa claims he was forced to ignore orders from DA
Acting Coatesville Area School District Superintendent Angelo Romaniello (right) is facing allegations that he countermanded directives from Chester Couynty District Attorney Tom Hogan to keep the school district’s computer system locked down, pending an investigation.
Updated, 7:30 p.m.: adds comments from school district, attorney Sam Stretton
By Mike McGann and Kathleen Brady Shea, The Times
COATESVILLE —An attorney representing Coatesville Area School District Information Technology Abdallah Hawa and CASD Director of Middle School Education Teresa Powell called for the removal of acting Superintendent of Schools Angelo Romaniello and District Solicitor James Ellison, Sunday, alleging that his clients are being harassed — and in one case were forced to ignore the directive of the county District Attorney.
In a statement released Sunday night, the school district strongly disputed the accusations, stating that Powell and Hawa had retained counsel “to explore legal action” against the district. As a result, the district needed to “retain all records that could be relevant to any litigation, including electronic records housed on the district’s servers,” the statement said.
Stretton’s allegations come just days after the Board of Education moved to accept the resignations of Superintendent Richard Como and Coatesville Area High School Athletic Director James Donato in the wake of allegations that the two exchanged texts using racially and sexually offensive descriptions of staff and students. Powell and Hawa were the district employees who first brought the allegations to light last month.
Coatesville Area School District Information Technology Abdallah Hawa and CASD Director of Middle School Education Teresa Powell look on during Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting.
In a letter sent to the entire Board of Education and copied to various county officials and media outlets Sunday afternoon, Stretton said that Romaniello had pressured Hawa Saturday night to give him “all passwords for the computer network,” seemingly in conflict with instructions given to Hawa from Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan to “lock down” the system while the DA’s office continues to investigate the school district.
Late Sunday afternoon, Hogan confirmed that he instructed Hawa to make sure that evidence was preserved. “This is an instruction that the solicitor (Ellison) should have given to the entire district,” Hogan said, adding that anyone who tampers with evidence “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
In the letter, Stretton claimed that Romaniello instructed Hawa to “ignore the District Attorney and directed Mr. Hawa to provide the information … under the threat of insubordination.” Hawa complied, Stretton said.
The district statement said the board engaged the services of Reclamere, an IT firm that specializes in data security, to inventory and image all records on Sunday. “The goal was to ensure that no files had been or would be altered or deleted,” the statement said, adding that accessing the servers required obtaining the passwords from Hawa.
In his letter to the board, Stretton alleged that Romaniello “harassed” Powell after she reportedly answered questions from two local ministers about the number of African-American faculty members in the district — and took issue with the official number provided by the district’s Director of Human Resources, Erika Zeigler, who allegedly reported that 10 percent of the faculty is African-American. Powell believes the number is 6.8 percent, Stretton said.
“Any allegation that this board would harass or threaten any employee is ridiculous. We need to make sure we retain these records, and in fact we are required to maintain these records,” said School Board President Neil Campbell in the statement. “We need to make sure that we protect all of the records housed on our servers, which include the Social Security numbers and other personal information of our employees.”
Stretton also alleged that Romaniello was already implicated with making demeaning comments about Powell in some of the same texting conversations that led to the departures of Como and Donato. Texting excerpts provided to The Times would appear to confirm that claim, but the validity of the texting transcripts still has not been independently confirmed.
Stretton asked the board to see to it that this behavior be immediately stopped — and then called for the ouster of both Romaniello and Ellison from their current positions, claiming both remain linked to Como.
In an interview Sunday evening, Stretton said that after Hawa responded to Romaniello’s “unprecedented” request for passwords, Hawa contacted Hogan and Stretton, both of whom told him not to comply. Hawa then received an intimidating email from Romaniello, Stretton said. He said neither he nor his clients had threatened any legal action.
In the email to Hawa, Romaniello wrote: “The directive that I have given to release the access information for the servers of the District which I have been appointed by the Board of School Directors is not subject to approval by you or the District attorney. As I am not aware of any court order which has been issued giving managerial authority of this District to Mr. Hogan or giving any employee the legal right to engage in insubordination by ignoring or interfering with an official directive of my office, I am directing you …[and another employee copied on the email} to forward me the passwords to access our systems within the hour. Failure to do so will be considered insubordination for failure to comply with a directive of the Office of Superintendent regarding the management and operation of this District.”
Stretton, who said Hawa and Powell contacted him about a week ago because they feared they might be the target of retaliation from district officials, said he has grave concerns about what district officials plan to do with the information.
Besides having ties to Como, Stretton said Ellison, “who has done nothing to resolve this matter,” has an apparent conflict of interest since he might be called as a witness. Moreover, Stretton said Ellison’s past brush with the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission suggests that he’s not the best person to be giving advice to the district. “Both of these men need to go, or this is never going to be cleaned up,” said Stretton, referencing Ellison and Romaniello.
In April 2012, the State Ethics Commission fined Ellison, the former Harrisburg Authority board chairman, $2,297 for steering work to his law firm, Rhoads & Sinon, where he was a partner, state records said. A consent agreement said Ellison didn’t seek board approval for the hiring of the firm for almost eight months while Rhoads & Sinon billed the authority more than $20,000.
C
Thus far Reclamere has broken personal computers and destabilized the district’s network by added bloatware to the server core. It took hours on Monday to bring the portions of the system up and Technology is still working on understanding exactly what Reclamere did. The ramifications of having a private company come in and have unsupervised reign over the department servers and personal PCs is staggering. If they didn’t trust Mr. Hawa, they should have had one of the other techs (or at least security) shadow these people. Reclamere now has student and staff Social Security numbers and other personal information. Worse still is the fact that Dr, Romaniello has changed the locks on the server room, the very heart of activity and control of data, phones, and the internet for the district. Access is only through him. Technology is in and out of that room many times a day doing routine maintenance and tweeking the servers, replacing drives, and a dozen other things. There is only so much that can be done remotely and Dr. Romaniello is jeapardizing all communications and data-related activities district-wide (while allowing other non-electronic records to go unsecured). Is this all just a ruse to justify Dr. Romaniello’s access to Mr. Hawa’s office and computer? Might he be using his position not to “protect” but rather to find something to base a firing on? Isn’t that what was in the texts…Hawa has to go? If the whole computer and phone network crashes and the district can’t do business, let’s see who gets blamed and who will take responsibility. Romaniello and the lawyer (who is orchestrating all this and making oodles and oodles of money in the process) should be keelhauled for what they’re doing and then fired.
agreed. and the lawyer needs to be permanently disbarred from practicing law.
Whistle Blower, Mr. Hawa has been with the district for over a decade. He came in under Dr. Laurento and and was vetted by the Technology Committee and the Board at that time so holds no allegence to Mr. Como or anyone else currently in authority. His allegence is to the students of this school district. And as to your confusing statement about his not having and then surely having a “system” as well, why do you think we never had a security breach like Downingtown? It’s because all data that the district entrusted to electronic storage was secured, backed-up, and locked-down. What worries me are the records that are not…HR for example.
Lets ignore Hawa and Powel as well. Remember, they were appointed by the Como regime with Board approval. What does that make both of them? Mr. Hawa NEVER had a security system after D-town’s mess with student’s hacking into their system? Surely, Mr. Hawa had a system as well. Must be more to this story than appears….
It makes them both whistleblowers. To ignore them would be the same thing as what the board was trying to do by sweeping this all under the rug.
As for Ellison, I think he should be dis barred for advising his clients to ignore a DA’s directive. What kind of lawyer advises their client to break the law?
let’s compare the scenarios:
Ongoing Criminal investigation by the county DA who orders that all records be “preserved” as is…
vs
“rumors” of legal action by 2 district employees that somehow supersedes the DA’s criminal investigation, giving the district the “right” to “maintain” the records .
a small handful (think maybe 1 hand) of people within a single dept in the district with access to every possible piece of private information imaginable dealing with students, parents, teachers and staff of CASD
vs
an “acting” superintendent and a complete stranger from outside the district, working for a firm with quite a few employees in the public sector (ie no way for the district to vet or control any of the computer companies employees) all of whom now have access to kids’ health and academic records, adults financial info, staff email, SS numbers etc.
If the entire school board approved this weekend plan, and agreed to ignore the DA’s directives and put themselves in danger of obstructing an investigation…they are all incompetent and should be sent packing now.
I think it is completely uncalled for ripoff taxpayer to get Como’s son, Matt involved. Don’t question his mileage reimbursement unless you know the facts about what his job entails. Also, Angelo R. is doing a good job so far. Lets give him some time before passing judgement.
January check #2011 to Spectrum for tickets $2480
February Check # 79367 six room at Tropicana hotel 2/21 $886
You can see charges for RHOADS & SINON LLP in the Check Register available on the CASD web site (http://www.coatesville.k12.pa.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Check%20Register%20(03-31-13).pdf) #79617, for example, is for $194, 206.25. It is also interesting to note that Matt Como has a mileage reimbursement check for $700. That’s ~1400 miles a month or 70 miles a business day yet his staff tells us they hardly ever see him.
i wonder if matt even had to show up at work, i would be intrested to see if there are time clocks employees have to use and see his record. after all that has came out, i wouldnt be the lest be surprised to find it was a no show job!! but thats just an opinion tho!
Matt showed up occasionally for football practice. We used to watch he and his Dad from the library. Bet that wasn’t in his job description. Como senior rarely left his office and hardly ever visited the other buildings but he was there for football practice. Strange sense of priorities.
Thanks Abe. Just looking at check register and saw 48.00 for 2 cases of bottled water! Really!! How many bottles in a case I wonder? You can get a case of 24 at Bottom Dollar for 2.29!!!!
And the School Board, solicitor and acting superintendent have the nerve to sit on stage and drink bottle after bottle of water that we paid for!
I have been saying just that for 1 1/2 years now. You can’t even find Matt’s picture in a yearbook with all the other top people. Also, in the check register for Aug. 2013, one of the first items is a mileage check for $300 to Tim Lucci, a football coach, who chose to drive to WVU for the football summer camp. This event is sponsored and paid for by the Football Booster Club. If Mr. Lucci decided to drive himself rather than ride in the vans paid for by the Booster Club, he should be paying his own way. Who is approving these reimbursements and why?
The fact is the DA telling Mr. Hawa to “secure” the data files is exactly what the Board and Dr. Romaniello should have done from day one to protect the evidence. What about Business and Personnel data? Are they on paper or electronic and are they being protected? The Board hasn’t a clue and are worried that they’re going to be personally liable for allowing this stuff to continue. They’re totally dependent on Ellison. So is Romaniello. The reality is Ellison is running the district to the tune of $350+ an hour. If you look at the monthly bills for the past few years you’ll see Ellison’s firm has been paid between $100,000 and $200,000 a month…over a $1,000,000 a year. That’s a lot of books, staff, teachers.
abe can you give us the site we can look at this? sounds like a major waste maybe we should tell the times to investigate it
We know things will never get better if we keep trying to cover things up and destroy evidence. If and I say if, the players in this situation are “pure and clean” then no worries, but if you are out to do harm in any kind of way then your message become loud and clear. I do agree we have to continue to focus on educating our students yet at the same time we know how to multitask by taking care of all matters. Let’s get to the bottom of this, repair what’s broken and move forward. I’m praying for this city. Pastor Harris
We need to clean house now. Romaniello needs to go ASAP. Who is in control right now? Bevis and Butthead are going to get CASD sued. Just what we need is more money being spent on something other than the students of the school district.
If there were any doubts Romaniello was involved, it was surely just confirmed with his actions. You are witnessing mass panic and you can bet when the other shoe drops here, the whole organization with the exception of a few are involved. Once Hogan and Stretton turn up the heat, the board, and administration are going to throw each other under the bus faster then a new york minute…..
Why does District Attorney Hogan think it is okay to tell Hawa to lock the computer system?. Romanelli is Hawa’s boss and is the only person that should be giving orders!
Ever hear of interfering with an ongoing investigation or obstruction of justice?
is that even a serious question? i think that guy may be a troll
ummmm…because the DA is the law (and in charge of an ongoing investigation into the district) and Romanelli is a public servant…he is not above the law but subject to it just like the rest of us….
Your comment sounds like if your boss tells you to go steal a car, and the police say “stop” as you get into the vehicle…you are bound to steal the car anyway, because your boss is the one who is giving the orders….brainless if you ask me.
Let us remember our purpose, to educate the students in Coatesville. Look at the test scores since Como, Romaniello, Powell and several others have been in charge. The scores have gone down. We have furloughed more teachers and staff, yet hired more administration. WE have cut academic programs, and clubs but have not cut many sports. Yes Como was a bully and racist. Yes Romaniello is a bully, have not seen any texts from him as of yet. Powell has her own agenda. She also is a bully. She has called many people in to question them about meetings they have had or comments that she has heard they have said. Clean House!!!! The only Superintendent search that we had was when Como was hired. When Scarnati came in there was not a search. Stop making this about race. It is about the students and the best person to lead our district to ensure our students get the best education.
Mike I really hope you didn’t graduate from coatesville because you sound so uneducated, using the race card to her advantage? The facts are the facts Como was a racist and romaniello is just as guilty as Como so kill that noise, and as far as Sam he must be one hell of a lawyer with the record he has
Folks, let’s take it easy. What we don’t know right now is still more than we do know, so let’s be slow to rush to judgment.
Also — let’s avoid any personal attacks…
Michael, your comment is so ridiculous it can’t even be commented on. You must be watching football with Como in his garage.
Who in the hell does Sam Stretton think he is by a
demanding that the two employees be dismissed!! Just because he is listening to Mrs. Powell use the race card to her advantage to become the next superintendent doesn’t give him the authority to call for someone’s job. He is a fraud as an attorney and finds every angle possible to stick his beak in others business.
HE IS SAM STRETTON WHO HAS A LARGE NAME WITHIN THIS COUNTY? NOW WHAT’S YOUR NAME AGAIN? MANY PEOPLE WANT THESE TWO TO STEP DOWN AND THE RACE CARD WAS PULLED WITH THE TEXT OR CAN’T YOUR COMPREHEND THE DIFFERENCE…
a fraud of an attorney sounds like you are describing someone who denies everything…Sgt Schultz like “I know nothing” even though it’s obvious that you knew everything….also sounds like an attorney who gives his clients advice that could land them in criminal court for obstructing an investigation.
a real attorney does do a thorough investigation and makes it his business to know other peoples activities with regard to his case. ahem….that’s what an attorney does.